Student Research Report: Maintaining Work and School Balance
In Spring 2021, students in Dr. Emily Stark’s Research Methods and Design course completed multiple hands-on data collection projects. They were also assigned a blog paper where they discussed one of the topics they chose to research and explained their findings to a general audience. The goal of this was to give students an opportunity to explore a different form of writing from APA-style research papers. Some of these blog papers will be featured here throughout the summer to showcase the students’ findings. Please feel free to contact Dr. Stark through the contact form on this site for additional information about this course or the assignments used.
By Abbey Pilger
It is no secret that teens and college students are feeling more and more stressed. The constant pressure of school, work, social life, family time, and keeping up with society’s everchanging standards on how we should live our lives all contribute to the amount of stress we face every day. There has been so much on our plates in the past year alone that we could name hundreds of reasons why we may feel more stressed and anxious. But one thing I have always been anxious about is having a part time job while carrying out the responsibilities of being a full-time student. I was worried about how I would balance school, friends, and work all at once. I have been fortunate enough to have the choice of deciding if I wanted to work while in school, while other students do not get that choice. So, I decided to research full and part time students who were unemployed or currently working and compare their stress levels.
In one study, researchers (Oviatt, Baumann, Bennett, Garza, 2017) looked at any interference between a student's day job and school workload, a concept known as work-school conflict, and its effect on alcohol consumption, depression symptoms, and marijuana use. The research concluded an expected result; the more work-school conflict experienced by an individual produced an increase in depression symptoms and a decrease in physical health. On the other hand, people who reported working more hours actually reported fewer depression symptoms. This led me to suggest that stress isn't necessarily produced by how much you take on but rather how you balance and manage your workload. With this in mind, I conducted an online survey along with my classmates to look at a variety of different topics. My research, however, was focused on student status and employment. The survey was taken by 110 participants and given out through social media. I put the survey link on my snapchat story so my friends could easily access it through the app and my classmates did the same using a wide range of social media platforms.
I began by asking participants if they were currently employed and if so, how many hours they work per week. I also asked about the number of hours they spent doing school related activities such as zoom classes, pre-recorded lectures, homework, labs, etc. Finally, I looked at their reported stress levels. My research concluded that there was no relationship between the number of hours students worked and the hours they spent on school activities. This means that, in this sample, the number of hours a student spends working each week does not impact whether they spend more or less hours on schoolwork, and vice versa. When looking at high stress levels, I expected students who worked more hours per week to report feeling more stressed when in fact this relationship was not shown at all. I also expected students who reported spending more hours on schoolwork to report feeling more stressed than students who spent less time on schoolwork, this relationship was not the case either.
As you can see, my results were strikingly similar to those in the 2017 study I mentioned earlier. Usually when people think about a demanding job or the idea of spending 70 hours a week on schoolwork, we automatically assume that high stress levels will follow. It is not a bad assumption to have, we all experience stress, in fact a little bit of stress is good for you. Stress can become a problem when it is accompanied with physical symptoms such as headaches, high blood pressure and other illnesses. So, it is good to keep stress levels low, but how?
According to a website all about finding the balance between work and everyday life (Loretto, 2019), reducing stress can include doing activities such as exercise, socializing, getting rest, and participating in fun activities or hobbies. In other words, those parties that you skip out on to study may actually help you in the long run. Don’t get me wrong, making time for studying and schoolwork is super important in the concept of work-school balance, but studies show that making time for yourself and friends is equally as important at reducing stress. Practicing good time management skills can help you achieve this balance. Maybe you don’t skip out on parties, and you spend more time partying than studying, a common problem seen among college students. A way to achieve good time management skills is to practice saying no to going out when you have a big test or project coming up.
When looking at the concepts of work-school balance and time management, it may be easy for students who have practice in these skills to maintain their stress levels. This leads me to believe that the students who participated in my survey, have a good work-school balance as they did not have particularly high stress levels. The pressures placed on students both academically and socially can certainly overwhelm someone just by thinking about it. But in the end, it all comes down to you and how you manage your stress and workload.
References
Baumann, M.R., Bennett, J.M., Garza, R.T., & Oviatt, D.P. (2017) Undesirable Effects of Working While in College: Work-School Conflict, Substance Use, and Health. The Journal of Psychology. 151,5, 433-452, DOI: 10.1080/00223980.2017.1314927
Loretto, P. (2019). How to Create a Balance Between College, Work, and Personal Life. The Balance Careers. https://www.thebalancecareers.com/creating-work-life-balance-for-college-students-1986743.